Tomorrow I’m going out to Fort Worth, Texas, to skate a very cool ditch I’ve skated once before, last summer.
It’s an hour away.
There are numerous skateparks much closer. I will have more fun in this drainage ditch, not intended at all for skateboarding, than I ever have at any skatepark.
For the most part this is how my life in skateboarding has been. Skating places not intended for skateboarding. Reimagining the physical landscape – the built environment – in the way that skateboarders do. It’s been said more articulately by others many times.
Last weekend my friend Dale and I went to the 71st birthday skate session of my friend Jeff. It was at the new skatepark at Bachman Lake, in Dallas. It’s a super nice park. Really good. But still, for me, not even 10% as fun as a ditch.
Now, Bachman Lake is in a pretty shitty area of Dallas. The skatepark is at the west end of the lake, on the north side. The south side of the lake is Love Field Airport. Bachman Lake is where the legendary Blue/Clown vert ramp was during the 1980s. Dallas pros like Jeff Phillips, Dan Wilkes, Craig Johnson, and many others practiced there weekly, alongside everyone else.
Anyway, the west end of the lake, where the skatepark is, well, it’s a shitty area. Light industrial on streets like Denton Drive that head north along side the light rail line. Warehouses, shitty bars and clubs, low-rent apartments.
So when we left, I was like “fuck it, let’s go up Webbs Chappel Rd.”. Down that far south Webbs Chappel is sketchy and shitty. Dale needed some water so we stopped at a gas station/convenience store. Now, the store wasn’t horrible looking. But it is in a horrible area. But it was the middle of the day, not 3am. So we stopped and went in and got some water. As we left the store and were getting in the car we heard some loud unintelligible babbling from over by the light rail tracks. There was a security guard (armed) who’d been running off someone of unknown problems but clearly — troubled. We got in the car. I picked the exit furthest from the insane person, who was already heading for us to ask for money. Dale indicated that the person was female. Ugh. Anyway, we split.
Encounter averted.
Note to self. Don’t go that way again.
So we continued north, heading toward LBJ freeway and escape from shittyville.
As we drove, as skateboarders tend to do, we were still scanning for good skate spots. Dale spotted what we think was a good bank spot, but we’ll not be returning to Mordor to skate it.
